Beatrix's library was full of women, when Lorimer put in a tardy
appearance, the day after the Fresh Air Fund concert. A dozen little
tables littered with cards were pushed together in one corner, and the
tinkling of china and the hum of conversation betrayed the fact that
whist had given place to a more congenial method of passing the time.
Modern womanhood plays whist almost without ceasing; but it should be
noted that she frowns over the whist and reserves her smiles for her
more garrulous interludes.
Lorimer, as he stepped across the threshold, felt a sudden longing to
retreat. He had forgotten both the whist and the interlude, that
afternoon, and he felt no inclination to exchange verbal inanities with
a group of women of whom several had been at the Lloyd Avalons supper,
the night before. All of them, he was convinced, had heard of the
incident, and were covertly eying Beatrix to see whether she looked as
if she had slept well. His theory was justified by the fact that, for
the first time that season, not a substitute had been present.
Beatrix rose from the tea table, as he crossed the room towards her. Her
manner was a shade more alert than usual; but her eyes, half-circled in
heavy shadows, drooped before his eyes, as she gave him her hand. He
felt her fingers shake a little, and he could see the color die out of
her cheeks. Otherwise, there was nothing to mark their meeting as in any
way differing from any other meeting in the past. He greeted the other
women, accepted his cup of tea and took up his share of the burden of
conversation with apparent nonchalance.
The nonchalance was only apparent, however. Lorimer had sought Beatrix,
that day, much in the mood in which the naughty boy turns his back to
receive his allotted caning. The bad half-hour was bound to come; it was
best to have it over as soon as possible. Lorimer had gone to bed, the
night before, in a state of maudlin cheeriness. He had wakened, that
morning, feeling a heavy weight in his head and a heavier one on his
conscience. He had an unnecessarily clear recollection of Beatrix's face
as it had looked to him, the one sharply-outlined fact across a misty
distance peopled with vague shadows. The eyes had been hurt and angry;
but the lips showed only loving disappointment. All the morning long, he
had pondered upon the matter; but by noon he had made his decision. The
meeting was inevitable, so what was the use of trying to put it off?
"Well, Sidney?" Beatrix said steadily, as soon as the last guest had
made her nervous, chattering exit.
With some degree of care, he had prepared his defensive argument; but it
had lost all its force and fervor by reason of the half-hour spent in
the roomful of women. Now he made a hasty effort to reconstruct it, and
failed.
"I am sorry," he said, with simple humility.
Unconsciously, each had taken the best method to disarm the other.
Before scornful, angry denunciation, he could have burst out into
voluble explanation and defence which, in its turn, would have
antagonized Beatrix beyond any possibility of relenting. For the
unpardonable sin, forgiveness must be a free gift. Confronted by
excuses, Beatrix would have been unyielding. In the face of his
humility, she hesitated to speak the final condemnation, and instinct
taught her that feminine reproaches were worse than futile in the face
of a real crisis.
[Illustration: "'Can't you make any sort of an excuse for yourself,
Sidney?' she demanded"]
"How did you happen to do it, Sidney?" she asked quietly, as she seated
herself again beside the deserted tea table and began absently setting
the disordered cups into straight rows.
He raised his eyes from the carpet.
"Because I was a brute," he said briefly.
Methodically she sorted out the spoons in two little piles. Then,
pushing them together into a disorderly heap, she started to her feet
and faced him.
"Can't you make any sort of an excuse for yourself, Sidney?" she
demanded, and there was a desperate ring to her words.
He shook his head.
"I can't see any," he replied, after an interval. Suddenly he laughed
harshly. "Unless you count total depravity," he added.
She ignored the laugh.
"I suppose you know, then, what this means," she said slowly, so slowly
that it seemed as if each word caught in her throat.
His face whitened and he started to speak; but his voice failed him. He
bowed in silence.
"I am sorry," she went on, while the cords in her clasped hands stood
out like bits of rattan; "perhaps I am more sorry than you are; but
there seems to be nothing else that I can do. Last night was the
tragedy of my life; to-day is the hardest, the longest day I have ever
spent. But--"
Bending forward, he took up one of the spoons from the table and looked
at it intently for a moment. Under his mustache his lips worked
nervously, and Beatrix saw the moisture gather in great drops upon his
forehead. Fortunately she could not see his eyes, for their long lashes
veiled them. It was better so; she could hold herself more steady. There
was a certain mercilessness in the way she waited for him to break the
silence.
"Is it final?" he asked at length. "I wish you would give me another
chance, Beatrix."
"I have given you too many, as it is," she replied sadly.
He looked up at her, too much startled now to care whether or not she
saw the tell-tale tears.
"How do you mean?"
"That last night only confirmed what I have been suspecting and
dreading." This time, there came the scornful note he had so feared.
He dropped his eyes again, and accepted the condemnation in silence. If
she knew the whole truth, there was no need of arguing with her over the
details. The spoon snapped in two in his hands. He rose and tossed the
fragments into the fire.
"Where are you going?" Beatrix asked.
"Straight to the devil." His accent was hard, but perfectly quiet, the
accent of a desperate man, not of a reckless boy.
Up to the last moment, she had expected that he would seek to justify
himself, would ask her to explain her decision and to modify it. This
grim, silent acceptance of his fate terrified her. It seemed to throw
upon her shoulders all the responsibility of an action which in itself
was right, yet possibly burdened with consequences dangerous to another.
For herself, for the killing of her own great love, Beatrix never
wavered. It was her own affair and concerned herself alone. But she knew
that Lorimer loved her, and all at once she realized that her sudden
rejection of his love was bound to bring forth bitter fruit. During the
time it took him to cross the floor, she was swiftly weighing her duty
to herself against her duty to her neighbor. She was bound to send him
away; but was she equally bound to send him away like a beaten dog,
without a word of explanation or of pity?
"Sidney?"
He had reached the door; but, at her call, he hesitated and looked
back.
"You understand why I am doing this?"
"Yes," he said bitterly; "I understand only too well."
"And you think I am justified?"
He faced about squarely.
"Good God, Beatrix, when you have stabbed a man to death, don't grind
the knife round and round, and ask him if he feels it! Let him make as
plucky an exit as he can."
His words broke the strain she had put upon herself.
"I didn't mean--I didn't suppose--" she faltered. Then she dropped into
a chair and covered her face with her hands.
Lorimer turned to the door again, halted irresolutely, then went back to
her side.
"I can't go away and leave you like this, dear girl," he said, as he
bent over her. "It isn't going to be easy for either of us; it is bound
to leave a terrible scar on our lives. But, if it is the only thing you
can do: at least, can't we say a decent good-by to each other?"
She took down her hands, drew a long breath and looked up at him; but
she was unable to meet the look in his eyes, the loving, hungry look
which she had learned to know so well.
"We have loved each other, dear girl. I have been better and stronger
for your love. I only wish it might have lasted, for in time it might
have made me quite steady. But I am glad I have had so much. Whatever
the future has for me, at least I have had something in the past."
The hardness had left his tone, and the passionate, bitter ring. There
was nothing now but the note of utter sadness. Beatrix trembled for
herself, for the fate of her resolve, as she heard it.
"But I couldn't hold you, Sidney."
"No, dear; perhaps not. But you held me more than you knew. You only saw
the times I slipped; you never had any idea of the times I nearly went
under, and pulled myself up again for your sake. If it hadn't been for
you and Thayer, for Thayer before I ever saw you, dear, I should have
gone under long ago. Now Thayer will have it all to do."
There was no reproach in his voice. He seemed to be merely stating the
fact, not entirely for her ears, but as if he were trying to accustom
himself to the thought of all which it implied. Suddenly his shoulders
straightened; his tone grew resonant; his words came more rapidly.
"It is in my blood, Beatrix. My mother was weak, and I am weaker still.
I know the danger; I see it and I tell myself that I must fight shy of
it. For a while I do fight shy of it, till I get off my guard and think
I am quite safe. The next thing I know, it has cropped out again, and I
haven't the nerve to face it and knock it over. It knocks me over,
instead, and each knock is just a little harder than the one before it
has been. I realize it, and I try to down it; but that's all the good it
does. I am weak, Beatrix, weak and selfish. I honestly think it is
harder for me to keep steady than it would be for Thayer, or even for
Bobby. The taint is in me. I don't mean that it is any excuse for my
making a brute of myself; but, if there is any pity in God, he must give
a little bit of it to us fellows, born weak, realizing our weakness and
truly meaning to fight it, and yet giving in to it again and again."
"There is pity in God, Sidney," she said drearily; "but pity can't do
any good in a case like this. You need help, not pity."
"The help of man?" he asked bitterly. "Who will give it? They are too
busy saving themselves."
"There is only one man who can help you."
"Thayer?"
"No; yourself. Sidney, I hate to discuss this thing, for it has come
between us and spoiled life for us both; but you have no right to depend
on Mr. Thayer as you do. You aren't a child, and you can fight your own
way out of this."
"What's the use now?"
"Use! Everything. Your whole manhood."
"But in the end? What does it all amount to?"
"Surely, you aren't child enough to need a bribe?" she asked in sharp
scorn.
Her scorn stung him to rapid speech.
"Beatrix, ever since I turned into manhood, I have known this danger of
mine, and I have tried to fight it for the sake of the woman I might
love, some day. Laugh, if you will. Perhaps it is funny; but it has a
certain pitiful side to it, this trying to keep one's self clean for the
sake of the woman one has never yet seen. Then, last fall, I did see
her. Since then, the fight has been easier; perhaps I've not lost so
many battles. It all seemed more worth while. And now--"
"And now?" Her voice was almost inaudible.
"Now I have had it all and lost it, lost it through my own fault, and
there doesn't seem to be anything left worth fighting for."
There was a long silence. At length, Beatrix rose.
"Sidney," she said, as she slowly held out both hands to him; "shall we
fight side by side for a little longer?"